Heaven
by MooseWoodson
Summary: Severus Snape died with one goal in mind: To protect the son of the woman he couldn't. He died with her on his mind...so what happens when he wakes up?
1. Part I

A/N: Well, just another Severus and Lily project. I'm hopelessly obsessed with Sev and I believe 100% that he and Lily should have ended up together, and so I made it happen the only way it ever will-in a fanfiction. :( BUT, hopefully you guys like this and let me know what you think! :D

"Take them...please, take..them.." My voice sounded far away even to me and in a desperate addition to my plea I tried to gesture to my face. I don't know if it worked. I couldn't feel my limbs and it suddenly didn't seem worth the effort to try and feel them. I was dying, I knew that much. I tried to speak again, to tell him to hurry, but before I could make my voice work he was back with a small vial.

I knew then that I could let go and the tears came freely. I just let my anguish loose. I let myself feel all the pain I had been trying to suppress for 16 years. All of the memories of Lily falling away, down my cheek and into the tiny glass vile he held to my face. I tried to breath but the movement got caught in my chest.

He was putting the vial away and I began to panic, because my memories were fading with my vision and I wanted to see her again. To see her vivid green eyes looking up at me. Before I knew what I had planned, I began reaching for the boy with all the strength I had left.

"Look at me.." I managed, as I watched my hand tremble near his face.

He leaned in, looking me in the eyes. "You have…her…eyes…" I choked out, my chest aching with the effort of my dying lungs. There. My Lily was before me again. After all these years of terror and torture, she had finally come back to me. I tried to keep my focus on those eyes but everything was going black. The only thing I could do was let my lids fall shut and keep the image locked tight within. I didn't really notice when it happened. All I saw were those eyes. Bright green, like the lights that garnish a Christmas tree. Bright green, like the curse that had been used to destroy her…

I sat up quickly, gasping at the sudden frightening image of green light that had seared my eyelids only seconds ago. "Lily!" I managed to choke out as I clenched my eyes tight.

"Mummy is downstairs, Daddy. She told me to come wake you up!" A small, light voice spoke from my right, and I froze. What was that? Who was in my bedchamber?

I opened my eyes quickly, to see where the voice had come from, and I nearly shut them again in unconsciousness. How? What was the meaning of this? Lily, as a child, was here before me. I didn't understand. Just moments ago, I had been…dying. No…dead! This was impossible.

While I was busy trying to create an explanation to what was happening, the child climbed up onto the bed I was sitting on and placed a small, stubby hand on each of my knees.

"Daddy? Are you ok?" She asked, butting her small, red head between my two arms that were propped on my legs, supporting my head.

"Daddy?" I asked, not realizing until I heard it that I had spoken out loud.

"Yes! That's you!" She said with excitement in her voice. I looked down at her with confusion and a little fear. Is this hell? Is this my eternal torment for letting Lily die?

I can't think! Nothing makes sense and this child is…wait…her eyes…

Slowly, I moved my hands down and touched the child's cheeks. She's real. Solid. Just like me.

Her eyes…they aren't the green of Lily's. Every aspect of her face is just like Lily's. Even her dark red hair.

"Daddy, wha' are you doin'?" She asked, her words slurring from her cheeks being pushed together.

"Your eyes. .." I answered in a trance like manner. "They're black." This was too much. I had only ever seen eyes like those on one other person.

"Uh-huh! Mummy shays they're jus' like yours." She said, and tried to smile.

I let go suddenly, and her smile spread across her face. Lily's smile. But it wasn't Lily. This child had the hair and nose and chin and smile of the woman I loved, and yet, she had my eyes. _Daddy?_

Could this possibly be what happens when you die? You wake up in the world you wished you'd lived in? So this was Heaven?

"Come _on_, Daddy! Mummy is going to get mad if we don't hurry and eat breakfast." The child grabbed my pinky finger in one hand and my pointer in the other and pulled. She obviously wasn't strong enough to actually pull me, but I stood up anyway. This world was real. I was slowly beginning to realize that. The spring in the mattress I moved across. The coolness that met my legs as I moved from the spot I was just at. The hard wood beneath my feet and the faint smell of pancakes and bacon. And the child tugging at my hand.

No. MY child. MY child tugging at my hand.

I tightened my grip around her little hands. One of them pulled away as I stood and she began to pull me, her body slanting diagonally with the effort of it. I began to follow her, my senses on overload. My mind still couldn't keep up with what was happening, but I could at least accept it for the moment. I WANTED to accept the fact that I was alive and that Lily was alive. It was beyond my capacity to think about the gift of a child, but that did not hinder my gratitude towards whatever god that had put her tiny hand in mine.

I could only pray that I didn't mess it up this time.

A/N: So...I DO plan on continueing this. I just can't leave it without him seeing Lily again. :) Hope you liked it! Let me know!


	2. Part II

Disclaimer: I do not own Severus or Lily. I can only call claim to their child and this AU that I built around them. All thanks goes out to J.K. Rowling for her wonderful world and character.

A/N: This is the second and last part of this story. I hope you enjoy it. :)

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><p>Part II<p>

I walked as far as the stairwell before she gave up on pulling me and thumped down the stairs in her socks. She looked back at me with a smile when she stopped at the landing and then stomped her way down the rest. At the bottom, she took off at a run down the hall-her tiny legs moving quickly. I felt the strongest urge to smile at her tiny form but then I was confused as to_ why _I wanted to smile, so my face probably looked more like a confused grimace then a happy smile.

I started down the stairs, paying attention to the cool wood beneath my bare feet and right hand. The stairs creaked just the tiniest bit, but they felt strong under my weight. The wood was a light brown, and it was all perfectly clean. There were windows everywhere I turned, and the entire house was glowing with the light of the rising sun. Never in my life had I ever been in any dwelling so clean or bright. At the foot of the steps I paused and pondered how I knew this house. Suddenly, I knew the layout without ever having been past this point. I knew that the kitchen was all the way down the hall and on the left. I knew that it would be white, with windows on 3 of the walls and a bar countertop.

"How? How can I know any of this? How can this even be REAL?" I asked myself, in awe at this knowledge.

I shook off my disbelief long enough to remember that I was supposed to be following my child to this bright kitchen. I began walking down the hardwood floor, brushing my fingers against the honey colored walls. I couldn't stop testing this new place. If it was some kind of illusion, it was the strongest I had ever been witness too. I know underneath I felt that it was real, but my mind couldn't stop questioning the legitimacy.

Then, with one single sound, all of my doubt was washed away like a pebble in a rushing river.

"Did you wake Daddy?"

A voice. HER voice. A voice that my mind had attempted to recreate so many times but time had made me lose the real beauty in it. Just her voice was enough to make me halt and clutch at my chest and the wall simultaneously. I clenched my eyes shut and did my best to hold in the tears that threatened to moisten my face. There was no way an illusion or a dream could get her voice so correct.

Real….it's all REAL. My mind was screaming at me. Cheering, jumping and yelling.

"Severus! Severus, honey!" Her voice called out. She was quite loud, which meant she had no idea that I was there in the hallway-just feet from seeing her.

I gasped as that really hit me and I pressed my back to the wall. 'No..there's no way I can walk in there looking so distraught…' I tried to reason with myself. I needed to calm down and think.

I stood back up straight and kept walking. I couldn't decide on a pace. I wanted to run in order to see her quicker, but then I wanted to move as slow as molasses in fear of everything shattering at the sight of her.

I eventually made it to the door way and my eyes slid from the bright windows to the right, where my mind knew she would be standing in front of the stove.

At that moment, when she turned and the sun lit her hair from behind like a live blaze, I was again hit with the knowledge that this was real. I knew that my mind couldn't create something so radiant and perfect as the smiling woman before me. People say that their breathe was taken away so many times, but few who say it have ever really experienced someone so absolutely stunning and spectacular as to have really been breathless. I just stood in the doorway, frozen in awe and wonder at her form before me.

Suddenly, her gaze fell on me and her smile transformed into a beam that almost knocked me off my feet.

"There you are! It's breakfast time, sleepy head." She said this to me so casually as she walked from the stove with a pan and spatula to place pancakes on the third plate on the counter.

Before I walked in the room, I had told myself that I should just act normal. Go with what was happening and let myself adjust. This was also before I actually laid my eyes on her.

Keeping my eyes on her, terrified that if I looked away she would vanish into smoke, I walked behind the child and around the counter. She was putting the pan in the sink and turning from it when I walked up behind her and stopped, my eyes scanning the different colors the sun pulled from her magnificent hair.

"Oh!" She exclaimed in surprise at my closeness and then she laughed. It was laughter unlike any I had ever heard from her. It sounded truly happy. Not a child's carefree laughter or a teenagers confused laughter. This was the laughter of a woman who was completely and wholly happy and content.

It took me a moment to realize that this laughter was caused by me.

I couldn't stand it anymore. I couldn't just keep looking at her-I had to feel her-to hold her. So, I lifted my arms-wrapped in their pale pajama sleeves-and pulled Lily to me.

She was as solid as the child, and as warm. I finally let myself breathe and I inhaled deeply. She smelled like soap, the fresh scent of the pancakes and an underlying hint of my aftershave-as if she'd been so exposed to it for so long that not even bathing could wash it from her.

Her head fit so perfectly under my chin, and she wrapped her thin arms around me instantly.

"Good morning to you too." She said into my chest with a chuckle. She pulled her head back from me and looked up into my face. She slid her hands from my back to the front and then up, to cup my face.

"What are you thinking about so rigorously this early in the day? Hmm?" She asked playfully and pulled my face down to hers and kissed my lips softly.

It was such a shock that I didn't even think about my movements until my hands were laced through her long hair, holding her head still so that I could deepen our contact.

So many times, for so many years, I had dreamed of this small contact. My first kiss. Something reserved for teenagers and childish games was so vitally important at this one moment. Never before had I ever been so strong in my belief that I was right in avoiding all other women. I was meant to kiss only her and this moment was proof enough to shatter any doubts that others may have had about my abstinence.

"Ewwwww! Daddy! Stop being so grooosss." The child's small voice called out from the counter and I reluctantly pulled away from Lily. Her eyes slowly opened but only half way, her gaze soft and in awe.

I set my forehead on hers for a moment, unable to do anything except relish in the perfection of the moment. Then, I turned my head and faced my child.

The kiss was the final stretch in my subconscious doubts, and when they were finally all wiped clean, I could remember so many new things-including the name of my child. No, mine and Lily's child.

There was a new memory that was suddenly not new at all.

I sat next to a much disheveled looking Lily, in a sterile hospital room. I held one of her hands in mine and her other was wrapped around a tiny bundle that rested on her chest. My hand reached forward and pushed the blanket away from the bundle's face. Looking back at me was a face with a tiny button nose, a wide pink mouth and large, and deep brown eyes.

I remember looking up at Lily in surprise. She had smiled at me and pulled her hand from mine in order to bring it to my face. She caressed my cheek and pulled at me weakly. I leaned down and she planted a kiss right between my eyebrows, relaxing wrinkles that I had unconsciously made there.

"Don't look so surprised. She IS both of ours'." She said with a small chuckle.

"Yes, I know. I just thought that she would have your eyes. That vivid, bright, cheerful green." I countered, with a shrug. "My eyes are so dull and plain. They are too dark for such a bright, beautiful face."

Lily scoffed at me. "Your eyes are anything but 'dull', Severus! They are warm and comforting. They are the brown of the most fertile soil and the darkest, most delicious chocolate."

I smiled at her comparisons. "Yes, but yours are the color of all things alive and well."

"Well, that greenery would be nothing without that fertile soil to grow in." She countered and smirked up at me, proud of her clever analysis.

I chuckled at her idea of winning and looked back at our child, wrapped up so tightly in not only our arms and her blanket, but in the love and sunlight flowing over her.

"Sunlight." I muttered.

"Hm?" Lily questioned lightly, her attention also on the glowing face of our daughter.

"Sunlight." I said louder. "She should be named after sunlight. Her father the fertile soil and her mother the living foliage. Without sunlight, neither of us would matter at all. Sunlight is what makes all things alive and well." I finished, looking up at Lily.

She was beaming at me and she nodded. "It's perfect. Do you have a name in mind, then?" She asked.

"Eleadora. Gift of the sun." I said, remembering the name from a book of ancient saints.

Lily's eyes began to water and she nodded again. "It's beautiful." She whispered and looked back down at the newly named baby.

"Our beautiful, little Eleadora. Eleadora Snape." Lily said to the soft bundle, and she leaned down and kissed her just between her eyebrows, like she does to me so often.

I was brought back to the present and I suddenly couldn't help myself. I smiled fully at the little red-headed replica of Lily.

"Eleadora. My beautiful, little Eleadora. My sunlight. The one thing I've always needed." She looked at me in confusion, but I quickly walked over and picked her up from her chair in one swift, flourishing move. I held her close to my chest and spun in a circle, unable to control my happiness.

That was it! That was why I wanted to smile at her as she ran down the hallway. She made me happy! It had been so long since I was happy, that I had forgotten what it really felt like.

As I spun, I heard that wonderful twinkling of laughter again-but this time is came from the child in my arms. I stopped spinning, lifted her up so that we were face to face and kissed her right between her eyebrows, just as her mother had seven years ago.

"I think," I started, walking over to the counter and sitting down at my designated spot with Eleadora in my lap, "that it is time to eat this delicious breakfast Mummy made for us so that we can go have some fun. What do you think?" I asked my daughter, who was still giggling.

"Yeah! I wanna go outside and play futbol! Can I Mummy?" Eleadora looked over the counter at Lily, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Yes, of course." Lily answered with a laugh. "We'll play on a team, and see if we can beat Daddy." She said with a smile and a wink and she walked around the counter and sat down next to me.

Eleadora cheered and then picked up a fork and started cramming her mouth as full as she could in order to finish quickly. Lily leaned behind her and pecked me on the cheek.

She looked up at me with eyes full of love and happiness and said, "I love you." And I instantly thought of how foolish I had been to ever doubt the reality of any of this.

"I love you too, Lily." I said back and I turned to Eleadora and kissed the top of her head. "Always."

Eleadora turned around, her cheeks bulging with pancake and syrup on her nose, and she smiled at me-not caring that pancake was dangerously close to popping out of her mouth.

I laughed out loud for the first time, this new happiness too strong to keep contained like rage or sorrow.

They say that Heaven is a place of only happiness and love. Whether what people say is true or not, I knew that I was in Heaven and that I COULDN'T mess things up this time. I had been given a second chance-a permanent chance to just be happy.

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><p>AN: Thank you to everyone who has read this! I worked very hard to make it as believable as possible, regardless of the inordinate amount of OOCness I had to use. I hope you enjoyed it and reviews would be immensely welcome.

Also-I'm not sure if it was evident to anyone, but they do not have magical abilities in Heaven. :) I tried to make that evident with Eleadora's plea to play futbol rather than Quidditch. I hope it was enough of a hint.

Also also-Eleadora is pronounced Ella-dora. I hope that wasn't too confusing for anyone.


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